Free Nightmare of the Dead: Rise of the Zombies by Vincenzo Bilof Page B

matter who'd hurt her enough to damage her physical body, all that mattered was that Saul loved her more than anything, and all of his goals revolved around her happiness. When he finally joined the Nightmare Collective, they would give him the funding and laboratory he needed to restore his mother to prominence. It wasn't fair that he was the only one who could hear her voice. Her wisdom should be shared, as it once was.
    The power of his weapon would have to be demonstrated at Vicksburg, but he needed to collect enough infection and human suffering to make a mixture powerful enough to transform the city's entire garrison. With his added hallucinatory narcotics, the transformation from man to walking corpse could be completed, and with enough canisters, the siege of Vicksburg would be lifted. 
    "Look at me," he said to the soldier. "I'm going to remove the infection in your stomach. You will survive the procedure for a very long time, but eventually, you will die. Perhaps it will be from blood loss, or maybe it will be from shock. I wonder if it was worth it to you. I mean, the cause for which you fought, the lust for battle that drove you into my arms. Did you kill a man? Did you deprive two parents of a son? Have you inflicted harm upon a slave? What must you know about suffering? You've been free your entire life, haven't you?"
    The man's scream was muffled against the spider-mask. Fresh tears trickled along his temples, and Saul quickly dabbed at them with the stained towel.
    "Suffering is truly relative," the doctor suggested. "While these moments will be agonizing for you, it will end. You will not see the night, yet, there are others who've endured far worse on a daily basis. I say this not to make you accept what has happened, but for you to realize how insignificant this moment truly is. Beyond yourself, your sacrifice means nothing. I will help save your country, but for an ideal that is exclusive to me."
    When she recovers her memory, she will remember why she betrayed the Collective. She will know why she changed. You believe that her tendencies are natural, and she'll willingly return to us, but she fell in love, and her strength diminished. Santiago will kill her first.
    "Mother! Her sensibilities were corrupted by exposure to the negros. I agree that she's an invaluable weapon for the Collective, and I've done what I can to bring her back into the fold, but if Santiago feels she must die, then our own goals remain paramount! We can't allow her to destroy the future of the human race!"
    But he had a special variation of Transmortification reserved just for his beloved sister.
    While his mother's voice continued to taunt him and remind him of his failures, he gritted his metal teeth and began to cut away at the flesh surrounding the stomach wound. Blackened and charred from the spreading infection, Saul cut away without any protection on his hands or eyes.
    He dreaded this moment. Whenever he began the procedure, his brain reverted to a primal state, weakened by memory and the abuse h e suffered as a boy. He could hear his sister's voice taunting him whenever he played with his mice.
    The loss of his teeth was a memory he would never forget.
     
    ***
    Mother rode upon her horse with the reins clenched tightly between her hands, with an armed retinue following behind as they left the homestead. Saul held on tightly to the banister along the spiral, red-carpeted staircase of his family's ancestral manse. Through a large window in the foyer, he could see the horses gallop away.
    He slowly made his way down the staircase. Saul knew exactly where his younger sister was.
    Saul wanted nothing more than the freedom to play with his mice. She would tease him and would sometimes even kill the mice Mother brought home for him to play with. The eleven-year-old girl would call him "weakling" and "little girl." She would rip the pages out of his anatomy books and would leave dead spiders in his clothes. She spat on him.